Thursday, August 13, 2009

One Million and Rising

A gloomy report today shows that nearly one million young people are out of work as unemployment hits a 14-year high.

Official data revealed that youth unemployment has soared, with more than 700,000 18 to 24-year-olds and 206,000 16 to 17-year-olds jobless.

The figures formed part of what economists described as a "ghastly" set of employment data, which showed that the jobless total had hit a 14-year high of 2.44 million and that the jobless rate had reached a 13-year-high of 7.8 per cent.

The real figures for non-working young people are hidden by the number of in higher and further education and will really start to be revealed as their courses come to an end over the next two to three years, unless we see a dramatic reversal in the economy.

The Times reports the only glimmer of hope in this last quarter's figures was in the number of people claiming benefit. That rose by 24,900 in the period, compared with an expected 28,000 rise.

There's a great deal of good work happening behind the scenes, through 'Thanet Works' and other schemes in trying to find work placement for young people on the island but the broader national figures reflect a worrying trend once you include the sharp rise in unemployment generally.

The Bank of England Governor, Mervyn King, has declared Britain is facing the steepest recession in modern history. He predicts the economy will take longer to recover from this recession than it did in previous economic slumps and it will take “several years” before banks are lending normally to households and businesses

No Government is going to be able to reverse this most consequence of the recession without a considerable struggle and with drastic public sector services cuts just around the corner, we can all expect more pain to come.

There was a further growth of artificial work in the 70s (County Councils) for even more public sector parasites.

These of course were, for example, those in secure employ who did things like issue benefits to former miners.

The mines closed and, with closure, any development of eco fuel (coal based) and hydrogen based energy and electric car recharging power distribution systems (needed to be combined with electrification of rail) ended.

There has been a lack of vision (especially from Margaret Thatcher and her apprentice Tony Blair).

We now need joined up thinking (apologies for cliche)

For example an expansion of the Reserve Forces technical, medical and scientific Corps. We need to combine the requirements of social order, aspiration, contingency planning, useful education, infrastructure development, internal security.

The Reserve Forces are the way to go on that one. It would not be purely artifical work (like so much of the public sector) but would be a part of rebuilding an expertise base in this country.

There might be more money to help the unemployed if Gordon Brown's Government didn't hand out over a million quid for holidays and a new life to every Mum who tortures her own child to death. Rest in peace Baby Peter some of us are outraged on your behalf.